Section 404 kicks in and rocks SOX readers

With all the hubbub about Sarbanes-Oxley, we turned to BT Trax to see how the news has been playing out over the last 12 months. As you can see in the SOX news interest graph, there is a low-level of interest but key developments spike interestto new highs, and none more so than when Section 404 kicked in last Novemberfor large cap publicly traded firms.

So what was the hot news? The most read item highlighted the positive impact of 404 on IT budgets, especially for compliance solutions. The little up tick in February was due to two documents. The first speculated on the increased demand for software that can automate SOX compliance, as well as business process and document management. The second was quite a surprise for our analysts--a white paper (registration required) by Akonix educating businesses about how instant messaging fits into the SOX picture:it must be controlled, monitored, and archived along with other regulated electronic communications. The remarkable interest in this technical guide underscores the reality that is SOX and how much still has to be done to line up with its requirements.